I finished the second draft of my workshop piece this week but in writing the word pool exercise some interesting things happened.

A word pool is basically word association. You pick a few words you like the look of (you can even pick them out of the dictionary) and then you just bounce them around on paper. You can combine a couple of words to make phrases and then start free associating from these phrases as well. In the end you should have a page full of free writing that doesn’t make any sense. Look at what you have on the page; is there anything that catches your imagination, makes you think of possible ideas? If there isn’t keep looking, something will jump out eventually. Or you can keep writing until that illusive idea comes along.

This word pool exercise lured my mind down the path of creativity and I discovered two new story ideas. One of which I am currently turning into a short story and features a minor character from my novel.